Gregory J. W. Urwin, professor of history and associate director of CENFAD, published an article, “‘Slow Trot’ Thomas between Wars: Accurately Dating an Antebellum Image,” in the November/December 2004 issue of Military Images.

Urwin played a prominent role in the 2005 Society for Military History (SMH) meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, at the end of February. He presented a paper, “Cornwallis and the Slaves of Virginia: A New Look at the Yorktown Campaign,” in a panel devoted to “Re-Thinking the American Revolution in the South.” Urwin also organized and chaired a panel titled “Asymmetrical Warfare: The American Experience in the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Finally, Urwin acted on behalf of CENFAD to present the society with a check for $1,600 for the Russell F. Weigley Graduate Student Award. The award, which the SMH named for the renowned Temple military historian and CENFAD co-founder, is intended to defray the travel costs of graduate students whose papers are chosen for presentation at the society’s annual meetings. The $1,600 check represented contributions made by Weigley’s students, Urwin’s students, and CENFAD faculty.

Urwin delivered the Twenty-fifth Annual Bancroft Memorial Lecture at the United States Naval Academy on Monday, October 18, 2004. His topic, “Discipline, Camaraderie, and Luck: A Tale of POW Survival,” drew on the research for his current book project, “Victory in Defeat: The Defenders of Wake Island as Prisoners of War, 1941-1945.” Urwin returned to the Naval Academy during Temple’s spring break in early March 2005 as part of a team of outside academics chosen to review that institution’s history program.

Urwin has been getting extra mileage out of his Cornwallis research. He delivered a longer version of “Cornwallis and the Slaves of Virginia” to the American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia (ARRTOP) on March 23 and Temple’s Undergraduate History Association on April 12.

Urwin has been commissioned by Hugh Lauter Associates and the National Infantry Association to write a chapter for a lavishly illustrated coffee-table book about the U.S. Army Infantry. Urwin’s chapter, which is tentatively titled “Building a Nation,” will cover the infantry’s development from 1784 to 1843.

Cosgrove-Meurer Productions flew Urwin to Los Angeles in late March to shoot six hours of interviews for a seven-part documentary series on major military commanders of the American Revolution. The series will air later this year on the History Channel. Urwin is slated to appear in the episodes on George Washington, Lord Charles Cornwallis, Benedict Arnold, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Daniel Morgan.

Southern Illinois University Press has announced that it will release a paperback edition of Urwin’s essay collection, Black Flag over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War, by November 2005. The book continues to garner favorable reviews. The February 2005 issue of the American Historical Review called it a “compact, well-organized collection of essays” and “a valuable primer for students and general readers.” The latest issue of Military History of the West said, “Black Flag over Dixie is an important work that brings together examples of the recent scholarship and offers generalizations that emerge from this work.”

Graduate Student News

Ben Cassidy, doctoral student in history, made a research trip to the United Kingdom in the last two weeks of January 2005 to conduct research for his dissertation, which is tentatively titled “Sir Evelyn Wood and the Victorian Army, 1854-1903.” Ben examined manuscript collections at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the National Army Museum in Chelsea, and the British National Archives in Kew.

Mark T. Gallihue, doctoral candidate in history, was awarded this spring tenure as the Cultural Resource Manager and Garrison Historian at the US Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Brady King doctoral student in history, presented a paper on the United States Naval Affairs Committee prior to the war at the Spring 2005 seminar of the East Coast Chapter of the Western Front Association on 19 March at the Hilton Hotel at Penn's Landing. . His "Information as Power in Wartime America, 1898-1918" appeared in the March 2005 Journal of the Western Front Association.

Jeffrey LaMonica, doctoral student in history, organized and hosted the Spring 2005 seminar of the East Coast Chapter of the Western Front Association on March 19 at the Hilton Hotel at Penn's Landing. Jeffrey participated in the 2005 Barnes Club Conference, sitting on a panel entitled “Historians' Lives in Different Environments” with Dr. Jay Lockenour and Joseph Eble of Burlington County College. He provided comments for a session on “World Wars and Propaganda in the European Context.”

Major Michael E. Lynch, U.S. Army, doctoral student in history, has been appointed as a Graduate Associate for the 2005-2006 academic year by the Society of Fellows in the Humanities Graduate Associates Program in Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts. In addition to keeping up with his studies and raising a family, Lynch also works as the director of operations at the newly opened U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Lynch has also had an essay accepted for publication. The piece, “Not Due to Vicious Habits: African-American Civil War Pensions,” will appear in A New Birth of Freedom: Essays on Shippensburg’s African-American History, ed. Steven Burg, to be published in May 2005 by Shippensburg University Press. Lynch presented a version of this essay at the James A. Barnes Club Conference in February.

Matthew S. Muehlbauer, doctoral student in history, presented a paper, “Alternate Explanations for the Outbreak of the Pequot War and the Assault on Mystic Fort,” in a session devoted to “War without Professionals in Colonial America,” at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History in Charleston, South Carolina, in late February. Matt also received one of the first Russell F. Weigley Graduate Student Awards granted by the SMH to attend the conference. Matt delivered a paper titled “Justice, Justness, and Just Wars: Contemplating Warfare in Early Puritan New England, 1630-1655” at the March 29 installment of the newly inaugurated CENFAD Colloquium. Matt is scheduled to give that paper at the prestigious Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture Eleventh Annual Conference in Santa Barbara, California, on June 25. Matt's wife, Elizabeth, delivered their second child, Jacob Michael Muehlbauer, at 9:06 A.M., April 21, 2005.

David J. Ulbrich, doctoral candidate in history, served on the Marine Corps Historical Foundation’s Awards Committee this year, helping to select the most outstanding publications in Marine Corps history. Dr. Nicholas Reynolds, Professor of Joint Military Operations at the Naval War College and chair of the committee, summed up Ulbrich’s contributions in these words: “What you brought to the table was a perspective that reflected your knowledge of Marine Corps history, your academic background, and a dose of common sense. This was a good complement to the military backgrounds of the other members of the Committee.” Dr. Reynolds sent a copy of these remarks to Ulbrich’s advisor, Dr. Gregory J. W. Urwin.

Major Grant Weller, USAF, doctoral student in history, received AFIT funding to present a paper, “Cooperating with Colonel Klink: Perceptions and Realities of German and Nazi Treatment of POWs in Film and History,” at the Film and History conference in November, 12 - 14 November 2004. Weller also spoke on the Italian and Austro-Hungarian navies during the Great War at the Spring 2005 seminar of the East Coast Chapter of the Western Front Association onn addition, Weller recently passed his preliminary examinations “with distinction” and is now hard at work on his dissertation prospectus.

Alumni News

Henry G. Gole (Temple, Ph.D, 1991) published a memoir titled Soldiering: Observations from Korea, Vietnam and Safe Places with Potomac Books. A retired colonel in the U.S. Army, Gole fought in Korea as an enlisted rifleman. He then served two tours in Vietnam as a Special Forces officer. Gole earned his doctorate under the direction of the late Dr. Russell F. Weigley. His dissertation, “War Planning at the U.S. Army War College 1934-1940: The Road to Rainbow,” was published in 2002 by Naval Institute Press under the title The Road to Rainbow: Army Planning for Global War, 1934-1940. Gole has taught at the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Army War College, the University of Maryland, and Dickinson College.

Major Stuart R. Lockhart, USMC (Temple M.A., 2003) married Lieutenant Julia Mason, USNR, on September 11, 2004. Lockhart wrote his M.A. thesis, "’For These We Strive’: The Military Socialization of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry during the Mexican Punitive Expedition, June 1916-January 1917,” under the direction of Dr. Gregory J. W. Urwin, with the late Dr. Russell F. Weigley as second reader. Both Major and Lieutenant Lockhart are graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy, where they are currently assigned. Stuart teaches in the History Department, and Julia is assigned to the superintendent’s staff.

James M. Paradis (Ph.D. Temple 1995) studied under the late Dr. Russell F. Weigley, with concentrations on Civil War and African American history. His doctoral dissertation became the core of first book, Strike the Blow for Freedom: The 6th U.S. Colored Infantry in the Civil War (White Mane Pub., 1998). He has taught at St. Mary's Hall - Doane Academy since 1986 and has been Upper School Dean there since 2000. He has also taught at Arcadia University since January 2000. His second book, published in February 2005 by Scarecrow Press, a division of Rowman and Littlefield, is African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign. The book comes with a foreword by Edwin C. Bearss, the legendary Civil War battlefield guide and former chief historian of the National Park Service.

John F. Votaw (Temple, Ph.D., 1991) published The American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, Volume 6 in the “Battle Orders” series from England’s Osprey Publishing. A 1961 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Votaw commanded cavalry and armored units in the U.S. Army through the battalion level. He served in Vietnam in 1966-67 and retired from the service as a lieutenant colonel. Votaw received an M.A. in history from the University of California at Davis in 1969. While studying for his doctorate at Temple under the late Dr. Russell F. Weigley, Votaw wrote a dissertation “United States Military Attachés, 1885-1919: The American Army Matures in the International Arena.” Votaw is currently the executive director of the Cantigny First Division Foundation in Wheaton, Illinois. He also teaches as an adjunct associate professor of history at Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois. A staunch supporter of CENFAD, Votaw has endowed a research fellowship to benefit Temple doctoral students studying military history.

Campaigns and Commanders Adds a New Title and a New Honor

Since 1999, Dr. Gregory J. W. Urwin, CENFAD associate director and a professor of history at Temple University, has served as the general editor for “Campaigns and Commanders,” a military book series published by University of Oklahoma Press.

This spring, the series released its seventh title, Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac’s Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America by David Dixon. This book is the first complete account of Pontiac’s Uprising to appear in nearly fifty years. It presents a detailed account of the causes, conduct, and consequences of events that proved pivotal in American colonial history.

As the Seven Years’ War drew to a close in 1763, French forts across the wilderness passed into British hands. The native tribes of the Ohio Valley were angered to discover that they had exchanged one European master for another. Led by an Ottawa chief named Pontiac, a confederation of tribes, including the Delaware, Seneca, Chippewa, Miami, Potawatomie, and Huron, rose up against the British. Though ultimately unsuccessful, the prolonged and widespread rebellion took a heavy toll on British forces.

Even more devastating to the British was the rise in revolutionary sentiment among colonists in response to the rebellion. For Dixon, Pontiac’s Uprising was far more than a bloody interlude between Great Britain’s two wars of the eighteenth century. It was the bridge that linked the Seven Years’ War with the American Revolution.

David Dixon is a professor of history at Pennsylvania’s Slippery Rock University. His first book, Hero of Beecher Island: The Life and Military Career of George A. Forsyth (University of Nebraska Press, 1994), won the 1995 Spur Award for Western Nonfiction Biography from the Western Writers of America.

The second volume in the Campaigns and Commanders series, Morning Star Dawn: The Powder River Expedition and the Northern Cheyennes, 1876 by Jerome A. Greene, recently won the Western History Association’s 2004 Robert M. Utley Award for the best book published on the military history of the frontier and western North America (including Mexico and Canada) from prehistory through the twentieth century. It is also the second book in the series to win an award from an international or national professional historical organization.

CENFAD Historians Appear in History Channel Series on World War II

(Reprinted from the Temple Times, February 17, 2005)

Temple students and staff who tune in to “The Last Days of World War II,” The History Channel’s new series premiering Friday night, Feb. 18, at 8 p.m., will see some familiar faces — and we’re not talking about Patton and MacArthur.

Two faculty members and one graduate student in Temple’s history department played important roles in the making of the 26-episode show, which counts down the war’s conclusion on its 60th anniversary.

Urwin, an expert on the history of the armed forces of the United States and the author of Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island, is a frequent voice in episodes covering the war in the Pacific. He will be the first scholarly commentator to appear in tomorrow’s premiere, which begins with the bloody battle for Iwo Jima.

Lockenour, a social and military historian who has studied the German officer corps, appears in many of the episodes describing the final days of the war in Europe. He will make his debut in the second episode on Friday, Feb. 25.

For Lockenour, being a “talking head” was more challenging than he expected.

“They filmed me for two hours in a hotel room in Center City that they had converted into a set with lights,” he said. “It was daunting, even though they give you questions in advance and time to prepare. The hardest part is learning the art of rephrasing the question in your answer, because they don’t want viewers to hear the interviewer’s questions in the final show.”

Although he doesn’t appear on camera, doctoral candidate David J. Ulbrich had a critical role in the production of “Last Days.” Credited as a researcher, Ulbrich reviewed scripts for each of the one-hour shows for accuracy, checking facts by comparing them to primary sources and the professional literature.

“My job is quality control,” said Ulbrich, who is working with Urwin on a dissertation on Thomas Holcomb, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1936 to 1943. “Each script is about 20 to 30 pages long, with about 60 to 80 facts to check, from the amount of water an American soldier’s canteen could hold to the number of casualties suffered by Americans in the war.”

Ulbrich’s continuing contributions (more than half of the episodes have yet to be scripted) are essential to the success of “Last Days,” the show’s producers said.

“We’re trying to present ourselves as an authority,” said Tom Kaniewski, the series’ managing producer. “If we get the facts wrong, people will speak up.”

Ulbrich, who is currently an instructor at Ball State University in Indiana, said the work had rewards he hadn’t expected.

“It was challenging to absorb myself in the minutiae of the war, because I’m a big-picture kind of guy,” he said. “But it’s making me a better teacher. Learning all these details — like how many calories there were in a soldier’s K-ration — will enable me to make my lectures more rich and colorful for my students.”